


Till Death Do Us Part

by FinalSwanSong



Series: Red vs. Blue, Soulmates [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8169787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinalSwanSong/pseuds/FinalSwanSong
Summary: Slight AU with soulmate pain share/split. Where if your soulmate dies, you die. With a loophole of course.





	1. I Hate Goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for a bit of a delay. Life.

He bumped his hand. That was when he knew. When he knew his whole life would turn around and get better. So much better.

Leonard Church was just getting coffee at the usual place when he accidentally bumped his hand on one of the tables whilst leaving. He spilled hot coffee all over himself, brown sinking right into his clothes. It was hot enough to cause him massive discomfort and pain when he realised that someone was by his side and helping him to his feet. It was Allison.

The to-be Director of his own military project allowed himself to be pulled unceremoniously to his feet, his long shin length lab coat brown and cooking him. He hurriedly pulled the coat off his shoulders and tossed it aside onto a nearby empty table, wincing as his hands made contact with the hottest part of the material. When he glanced back to his companion he saw her clenching her hands before she caught him looking and stuffed her hands into her pockets.

“The jig is up,” Allison commented.

Leonard looked at her with a small irritated smile. “You.”

“Yeah.”

Leonard scrunched up his nose and tried to adjust his glasses, ultimately failing. “How long?”

Allison allowed a small smirk onto her face, “How long have I known? Well, remember that time back in college when you tripped and fell down the stairs?”

Leonard remembered back to that time and vividly remembered Allison there, laughing at his clumsiness and complete lack of spatial awareness. But she did end up helping him up, in hindsight he really should have noticed her holding her left arm closer to her side. He grumbled something about her being a bitch before grabbing his lab coat off the table again. “Are we going to stand here all day? We have work to do.”

“I was waiting for you,” Allison dryly stated. Leonard barely had time to think of what she was referring to before he was whisked out the doors.

 

It felt like last week they had met, three days ago he had found out, just the day before yesterday they had gotten married and had a daughter. And now, today, she had to leave. The letter had come today, they had opened and read it (together) today, they had debated and argued today, they had silently come to an agreement today. Allison was going to war. The War was far more severe than predicted and many soldiers and civilians were being chosen and conscripted into service. Allison, being a former soldier, had been chosen to join the battle against the Covenant.

Leonard, or Director Leonard, had been in an accident at the lab recently, Allison arriving within the hour to help lift him back up and set him back on track. He had almost broken his leg, it was fully expected to heal within a few weeks but he was unable to enter combat, Allison was somewhat less damaged due to the time she had previously spent working out and she would recover in days. The UNSC also needed all the top scientists in every field to help with the war effort and Leonard Church was one such man. He had been chosen to lead a project to research and develop technologies to help win the war. But Allison was a different story. Despite the split pain, Allison didn’t receive the full physical injury sustained by her husband and she was far less vital to the success of Project Freelancer.

Caroline was peacefully sleeping in the room over while her parents sat on the couch together in silence. She had her father’s eyes but her mother’s fighting spirit. Allison was to be shipped off the following week, with a short period of time training before being sent to combat the Covenant. They were silently sitting there, Allison’s head resting on Leonard’s shoulder and his head upon hers. They were staring at the television, staring unseeing into its turned-off shell. This was the quietest the family had been in weeks, and the closest.

Leonard missed the old days, back when they would lie in bed together after a long day and just stay there, silent, feeling each other’s warmth and company. Those days were nice. But those days were over now. Leonard thought of having to raise Caroline on his own for the next few years, sure it would be difficult, but he would pull through, knowing that Caroline needed him and Allison would return. He could feel her breathing now, her chest rising and falling as he thought of his lonely future.

She was asleep. Leonard smiled to himself as he slowly raised his head off of hers, careful not to wake her. It wasn’t often that she fell asleep this early, usually the two of them would stay up into the early hours playing some random first-person-shooter. But the past few weeks had been long and exhausting, today especially so. Leonard Church inched his way out from under her, gently lowering her head down to the couch and placing a pillow beneath it. He made his way through their messy home to check on Caroline in her room. He would have to spend much more time with Caroline in the future, he reminded himself to ask the Counselor if he could work from home.

Minding his step as he made his way to the side of her bed. She was sleeping peacefully, her green eyes clenched shut. She was young, not yet old enough to have to fight in the war, and The Director preferred it to stay that way. He gingerly brushed his hand past her red hair, smiling as she reacted slightly. Leonard left the room and made his way to the bed he shared with his loving, if a little snarky, wife. He gathered up the large white duvet and hefted it onto his shoulder. Allison always said that he had deliberately picked a white house and a white bed and white sheets and a white duvet to annoy her, but all of those numerous, separate instances were complete coincidences. He placed the duvet on the armchair beside the couch and went back to the bedroom for her – jet black – pillow.

Leonard returned to find Allison sitting up awake, and slightly pissed off. He sheepishly smiled at her as she fixed him with an unblinking stare, he walked up to her and handed her the pillow in his arms, careful to remain outside of arms reach. She snatched the pillow from him and wryly smiled, breaking through her colder exterior. Allison gestured for him to come closer and, slowly, he obliged. The instant he was within grabbing range, her arm shot out and locked onto his left arm, yelping at the sudden display of speed, Leonard felt himself be yanked off balance and fell onto the couch beside Allison. She lay down and dragged him down with her. Using her other arm to position her pillow bellow their heads, Allison pulled her love into an inescapable hug and trapped them on the couch together.

Sighing, Leonard reached for the duvet he had brought and covered them both with it. Soon Allison would be gone and he would be alone with their daughter. But for now he could relax and enjoy it. For now he was happy.

 

The Great War was not going well. It had only been a few months and already there were almost more casualties than there had been in all past wars combined. With their race’s curse working against them, they were losing almost twice as many humans, a civilian or another soldier for each troop lost on the battle field. Leonard knew that it would simply be a matter of time before Allison’s outpost was attacked. He had done his best to throw his weight and pull some strings to get her on an out of the way planet, maybe that one with the odd name and alien relics the UNSC were trying to research and activate. But he only had so much power within the military, and thus, Allison was placed right in the way of the incoming invasion by the Covenant.

All Leonard could do was go to work, do his very best, and hope.

 

Allison slid into cover behind the large, nigh-indestructible rocks that comprised the ground of the planet. Many other troops ran to take cover behind the shoulder-high rocks, a few of them weren’t fast enough. Fast, accurate plasma bullets sailed through the air and buried themselves into several of her fellow soldiers, they fell to the ground and lay unmoving. As the Second rank moved to support the First, more Carbine fire came fizzing through the upturned dust of the battle, Allison watched as countless men and women died before her eyes. She growled angrily at the enemy and at the UNSC before turning and standing up, firing her assault rifle over the solid wall of rock. She didn’t aim for any particular targets, only to distract the snipers that took out their forces. Around her, all the other soldiers were readying their weapons and saying their prayers before joining her in firing at their enemy.

Allison dropped her empty Assault Rifle to the floor and reached out to grab the more accurate Battle Rifle out of one of her fallen comrade’s hands. She checked the gun and took aim with its sights, carefully picking off several of the aliens shooting back at them. The Third rank joined the first two at the trench, suffering far fewer casualties than their predecessors. A soldier ran up by her side and joined her in firing down at the enemy. Allison reloaded her gun before taking up a firing position again, she almost shot the idiot standing beside her when he touched her on her shoulder. She glared at him, knowing he couldn’t feel the full force of it.

The man gestured around them without talking, at their dead and dying forces. There were grown men and women openly weeping in the face of the war, but there were far too many more lying face down in the dust, unmoving. There were those that curled up in fear at the sight of all the death and carnage, those that cried holding pictures of their loved ones to their chests. Allison grimly shouldered her own fear and grief before returning back to the battlefield and firing once more. The Fourth rank reached their position and assisted in the firefight.

It didn’t matter. They were fighting an uphill battle. And they were losing.

Nearly the entirety of the first three ranks of their army were dead, trampled into the ground, never to return to their families. They were needlessly sending people to their deaths, like sheep to the pen ready to be slaughtered. Her battle-buddy nudged her arm slightly as he took up a position beside her, firing his own gun at the advancing enemies. The Fifth rank reached them. Allison took no notice of them and continued doing her best to gun down any and all aliens that dared show their faces down her scope. The Sixth rank reached them, there were smaller and smaller intervals between the reinforcements arriving, that meant that they were losing. Allison pulled more ammo from fallen allies for the Battle Rifle in her hands after her own supply ran dry, still continuing to fire and push through the assaulting menace.

The Seventh and Eighth ranks reached them, bedraggled and bleeding. They couldn’t keep up the fire to keep the enemies back. The aliens advanced, some with Plasma Rifles, some with Carbines and some with weapons Allison couldn’t even comprehend. The Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh ranks bolstered their lines but still the aliens pushed through the hail of bullets, returning their own deadlier fire.

Suddenly it was like the Ocean began to fight back. Two Banshees roared overhead, firing at the helpless ground troops below. An anti-aircraft gun shot one of the Banshees out of the air and it fell to the ground, screaming and burning. Further down the line Allison could see a squadron of four Ghosts break the line and zip past, firing at the soldier’s exposed flanks. The Ghosts were all destroyed in short order, coming under fire from two sides, but they had killed many troops.

Then the call came through the radio. Just a single dreadful word.

“Advance.”

The soldiers of the line looked at each other as they all got the order. Allison looked about her, the line was strongest in this small area and could hold against the aliens for now. But attack? They would be completely outnumbered, outgunned, out in the open without cover. They would all die. Allison grabbed up her Assault Rifle and reloaded it, carefully watching the attitudes of her fellow soldiers around her. They seemed to be following from her example, some of them continuing their covering fire while the rest of them prepared. Prepared for their deaths.

She looked around at the small group of thirty or so men and women around her, meeting all of their eyes. The eyes of dead men and dead women. They were dead from the second they were ordered to take this position. She shouldered her Battle Rifle and held her own Assault Rifle in her hands. Taking slow deliberate steps up to the wall, she scanned the battlefield before her, there was a large rock sticking up out of the ground just under one-hundred meters away. That would be where they would aim for.

Allison glanced at her team one more time before leaping over the rocks and charging.

The conflict on this side of the wall was far more chaotic than on the relative calm of the other side. It was like being in a completely dark room for an hour then being forced to look at the Sun. She was up and running from the second her feet touched the scorched ground on the other side. Dropping and rolling to the side to avoid several Carbine shots, she saw her thirty brave men and women scale the wall and marching into death, guns blazing. One woman was barely over the wall when a Carbine shot flew clean through her head and her body fell, lifeless, to slump against the rock barricade they had taken cover behind.

A man ran forward, firing his Battle Rifle in the vague direction of their foes before taking two Needler shots to the leg and collapsing to the ground. Up and down the line, troops were taking their example and charging over the rocks to run at their enemy. They were getting gunned down everywhere, falling, screaming, dead. An artillery shot came sailing out of the sky and blew apart five of her depleting squad, sending their limbs and blood flying across the dark, grisly plain. Allison leapt to her feet once more and sprinted for the cover she had seen before, it was still so far away. She brought her Assault Rifle to bear, taking out Covenant with her bullets. But far fewer than the losses they were suffering. A Carbine shot tore the Battle Rifle from her shoulder, sending it flying away.

She felt a presence beside her as she ran and she took an instant to look, it was the man that had stood beside her before. Back when the Third rank had joined them. It felt like years ago. He ran beside her, firing his Battle Rifle into the endless crowd of the enemy. Around them their comrades fell to the fire whizzing through the air, but they kept on running. A shot, like any of the others, sailed in through the dust and hit him in the leg. He looked at Allison with a face full of regret, a face full of sadness, a face full of fear.

Allison kept on running, she made it to the small rock formation that stuck out of the ground. She was the only one that had made it. She looked back to the man, he continued limping on, firing his gun. Another plasma bullet flew out of the crowd of aliens and buried itself into his shoulder, sending his gun spinning away.

She watched her friend get ripped apart by the bullets. His head get torn to shreds by plasma. His lifeless body fall to the ground, devoid of life. She hadn’t even known his name.

Allison gave a silent sob as she thought of the family that would be told of his death, the families that would be informed of all of their deaths. A Needler shot harmlessly sailed by her position, flying past into the sky. A second one swiftly followed it.

Then they turned around.

She gave out a yelp of shock as the two crystals suddenly snapped back in mid-air and teared through the air towards her. Seeing a chance, she threw her Assault Rifle up at the closest crystal. It was moving too fast to turn and collided with the gun mid-flight, exploding the weapon. But the second shot avoided the explosion and zeroed in on her. Allison would not just let it kill her, at the last second she rolled as far and as fast as she could, while still remaining in cover. But the Needler was too smart, as she moved it still followed her. The crystal sliced through the meagre amount of armour on her back and buried itself into her flesh.

Allison screamed out in pain as the crystal detonated, causing her muscles and organs to separate and open, pouring blood out onto the alien world. She could hear the Covenant army coming closer, their constant march thundering through the battle field. But as she lay there in a pool of her own blood the sound started to fade out, like she was really far away from it. She painfully brought her arm down to her front pouch and pulled out her photo.

It was a photo of her, Leonard and Caroline on their wedding anniversary. They were smiling, so happily. Allison didn’t have to imagine the pain Leonard would be in right now, writhing around as he knew what had happened to her. Caroline, she was so young. Caroline would have to grow up without a mother. Allison would never be there to take her to the park, or take her to the movies, or threaten her first boyfriend. Allison had never truly realised how much she wanted to be there for her daughter. To help her laugh when she’s sad and to help her when she’s angry. To teach her how to throw a punch and how to take a hit.

A silent tear rolled down her cheek. And once one broke through, they all started to stream out of her eyes. She felt the pain of her wound slowly seep into the background. Times would be hard for Leonard and Caroline, but she was sure that they would survive, she hadn’t raised a tough family for nothing.

Allison would have to deny Caroline a mother, but she would never deny her a father. She knew the rules of their life. Her love would die when she does. She looked at Church’s smiling face in the photograph, feeling her own lips try to tug themselves into a smile, like they were trying to remember the good times. She hoped her goofy idiot would be alright without her, she knew how he could hold a grudge.

She cried while her life slowly seeped out of her onto the alien rock and she thought of her family. She remembered the past few years of her life. The happiest years of her life. She remembered her first kiss with Leonard under the big oak tree. Finding out she was pregnant. Seeing her daughter’s green eyes for the first time. Staying up together and playing games. Raising Caroline and teaching her about the world. She thought of her husband’s face as she reached behind her, knowing what she would have to do to keep him safe.

She pulled her Magnum out from behind her and brought it to her head. She would have to do it before her fingers numbed and she would be unable to pull the trigger. Allison raised the gun to her head and closed her eyes. Crying. Thinking of home. Thinking of Caroline. Thinking of Leonard.

She fell to the cold hard ground.

Dead.

 

The Director was sobbing silently against the cold floor. The searing pain was far better than the hollow numbness that followed. The emptiness that signified her death. He reached into the depths of his soul to search for her and the only thing that returned was a heart-wrenching sob that shook his entire body. He collapsed against the ground. He thought of Allison and he crumbled, crying endlessly into his empty arms.

He reached out with shaking arms to grab at the small table nearby him. He fumbled on the table, hands briefly brushing over the one gun Allison kept at home. For one brief, horrible second he contemplated shooting himself, ridding himself of this awful world and seeing Allison again. But then he thought of Caroline and what that would do to her. He thought of the dreadful idea that she would be raised an orphan, completely alone in the world. He took a deep shaky breath and reached past the gun and to his camera.

The Director grabbed the camera and pulled it to him, the camera activating and unlocking to his touch. He blindly tried to scroll through the files, wiping his eyes with his sleeves every time they overflowed with sadness. He pulled open the files and found the latest video. It was the video from when Allison was leaving. He cried to himself as the video played before him, reliving the last time he saw her. As the video reached nearer to the end he tried to breathe again but his body wouldn’t follow his commands.

The Director held the camera and in his mind he saw Allison alive and well and then he opened his eyes and came back to the horrible, horrible truth that she was truly gone, that he would never see her again. His eyes looked up from the video to the room he was in. He looked at the white walls that she always complained about. At the games system they had spent hours at. The couch they had slept on so long ago. And he knew that he would never stop seeing Allison. She would be everywhere in his life, everything he looked at would remind him of her. And every time he remembered her he felt himself dying more and more, tears freely running down his face.

And he knew that he would devote his life to have her back, even for just a moment. To make them suffer like he has. To have Allison back again, he would do anything. He played the video again.


	2. Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so very sorry this wasn’t finished until now. Hopefully my writing has improved since then and will counterbalance the fact that I haven’t written for RvB characters for some time.

“Watch my bad side.”

“Of course, watching left. Execute in three, two, one. Execute. Good luck.”

 

“Dammit, jam! Cover, cover, cover!”

“Alarm!”

“York, are you okay?”

 

“An A.I. can’t fall into enemy hands, D. If you’re in there when he dies, you know what the armour’s protocol will do to you.”

“I would prefer to stay with York.”

 

“Good and evil are human constructs, Reginald. I was merely attempting to be courteous.”

 

“York. I would advise that you wake up.”

Vague sounds echoing down into his mind.

 

“York.”

A voice piercing through the fog of unconsciousness.

 

“York!”

A small surge of electricity shot through the armour and ran through the unconscious Freelancer’s body, the jolt tensing his limbs and jerking his brown eyes open in shock. He immediately let out a small gasp of pain, breathing in as his chest screamed in agony at the metal still buried in his flesh. York’s right hand scrabbled at his armour, hopes falling as his fingers sought out and found deep groves and holes in his suit.

York’s eyes looked around as he tried to turn his body over, to look up to see what had happened, but his arm collapsed beneath his weight, elbow bowing outwards under the pressure and sending him spilling back onto his face. Gulping down the dryness of his mouth, York attempted to clear his throat to speak, slowly feeling the numbness of the shock wearing off.

“D, you still there?”

A small, familiar green figure popped up onto his visor, before his right eye. The A.I. seemed to be having slight issues, body flickering slightly as he answered his owner’s question silently with his presence.

York let out a small chuckle despite the pain arcing through his chest, “I thought you’d have left me. More logical to join Tex in her crusade than stick around with this retired locksmith.”

“I informed her that I’d rather stay with you.” Watching Delta’s head bob up and down made York woozy and he closed his eyes for a moment, letting the aching of his body reach his mind for once. He could go to sleep right now if he wanted to. It would be so simple. “York, please remain conscious.”

“You know D, you don’t have to be my alarm clock any more. You can get a better job, climb the ranks.” His mind began to wander slightly, breathing slowing with his heart beats.

Delta flashed a bright green light in his eye, and York’s right eyeshot open to glare at his friend balefully. “You mustn’t lose consciousness, York.”

“Why not? Seems like a good idea to me.” He yawned, feeling a cold numbness wash over his wounds as his suit made a hissing sound.

“Because your death would mean the death of Carolina.”

York lifted his head off the ground at the sound of that name, head beginning to throb as the drugs and pain began to wage war over his mind, thoughts being scattered in the process. The fog over his mind parted as a clear image shone through, a clean club with pounding music. Empty seats and a lone drink. An absent bartender and no company. The doors hissing open behind him. The sound of footsteps. Turning around on his stool to face the doors. A bright light shining through, allowing an angelic figure passage. Her long red hair catching in the light, like a halo. Green eyes and a sparkling laugh.

York’s mind jumped back to the present as his armour shuddered and a stab of pain bleed through his chest. An alarm flared up on his heads-up display and the former Freelancer briefly bit his lip and focused on the image of Carolina to ignore the pain, the burning like barbed wire being threaded through the holes in his flesh. His breath bated as his training caught up with him, memories of a classroom long ago, a stern teacher drilling dogmas into their students with rigorous fervour.

 

An injury York had suffered, no memory of how or where, just the faintest idea of the pain and the tender care that he hadn’t expected to come from his teacher as he was both scolded and taught.

_“Remember York, the most important fact of our world. When we feel pain, so do our soulmates. And we wouldn’t want your soulmate to feel any pain, would we York?”_

_“What about you? Do you feel pain from your soulmate?”_

A pause, York waiting, wondering if he had wronged, the small smile his teacher carried for his curiosity, but a pain hidden behind his eyes, unnoticeable for a child but clear as day upon reminiscing.

_“Not anymore.”_

_“Why not?”_

A small wince.

_“Because they’re dead.”_

_“But I thought if someone dies, so does their soulmate.”_

_“You’re absolutely correct York.”_

_“So why don’t you feel any of their pain?”_

A line crossed. Trampled by his own youthful innocence in a rush for more information.

_“York, I want you to always remember something. Forever.”_

The world jerking up and down as his long brown hair flicked up and down in his nod.

_“Death doesn’t have to mean the end for two lives. Death only ever has to end one.”_

_“But how?”_

_“If you ever die by anything other than your own hand, your soulmate will die. They will feel your pain, and your suffering, and – in their connection to you – will also be severed from life when you die. But if you, of your own will, decide to take your own life, they will be spared. Punished to walk in a world without their other half. Alone for the rest of their days.”_

_“Why would someone want that?”_

_“Because sometimes the choice isn’t ours. Sometimes, the people we love, and the person who loves us the most will make that decision for us, the decision that a world without them is acceptable as long as you’re still in it. As long as you still have a chance to live.”_

_“Would you make that choice?”_

A tiny smile, the finishing touches on their talk and the applications of various medical materials. An inconspicuous wipe of the eyes with the back of a hand.

_“If I had to? Yes.”_

 

“York, I predict a 17.4% chance of survival if I shut down all non-essential functions to maintain the power supply to the healing unit.”

York took a deep breath, fighting down the pain to save Carolina one small inconvenience.

“Turn it off, D.”

Delta appeared before him on his display.

“But York, turning it off would reduce your chance of survival to 0%.”

“Turn it off.”

“York, you will not survive.”

York allowed the corners of his mouth to tweak upwards into a smile at Delta’s insistence that he keep living.

“Thanks, D. But this is what I have to do.”

The green figure nodded, the display coming back online as the power became rerouted elsewhere in the armour.

“I understand.”

York smiled through the pain, biting hard and hoping and wishing that Carolina wouldn’t have to suffer the same pain. “Thank you, D.”

“York.” The A.I. seemed hesitant, the green light slowly fading away. “It appears that now is the time for us to dissolve our arrangement as Freelancer and A.I.”

“No, D. No arrangement,” York smiled as Delta’s head tilted sideways in confusion. “Friends.”

“York, I was designed and made to fulfil my purpose as a helper to a Freelancer, to apply my logic and intelligence to enhance the abilities of whoever it was that would receive me. And I am glad that my Freelancer was you. I understand that I may be a fragment, and do not have the capabilities of a full artificial intelligence, but I believe that now I feel an emotion akin to happiness.” Delta’s form began to fizzle and fade away, turning transparent as his voice started to die.

“Me too, D,” York said, feeling his heart tear itself apart.

“In the end, though it may not have ended happily, I am glad to have known you. Thank you, York.” Delta’s body slowly vanished and York remained for a moment, feeling empty now that his ever-present friend was gone.

“Thank you. Goodbye, Delta.”

York closed his eyes, allowing his tears to freely fall down his face, and letting himself be drawn closer to the edge. He was tired, and now was the time for him to sleep. Eyelids drooping, heavy with aches and exhaustion, York thought about everything he had done, everything he never had the chance to do. Playful bickering with friends, violent missions, a helpful green buddy, brown armour with a shotgun, and a woman in cyan, with flowing red hair and vivid green eyes.

York breathed once more, and was still.

 

Carolina felt a jolt in her chest as her pain subsided, being replaced with a hollow feeling that was altogether worse. She had known what was happening when she felt the sharp pain in her chest, and the subsequent stages of numbness and agony interchanging. She had been able to see through the pain, reaching for a lighter that was no longer there.

Carolina had awaited the end, ready perhaps to meet York again in another life. But through the pain no end came, just an empty feeling. A lack of something that she had never felt before. She knew York was gone, that in saving her, he had killed himself.

Closing her eyes to envision him once again, all she saw was the sorrowful look he gave through his visor as she kicked him further up into the Mother of Invention. A deep throbbing pain that hurt him just as much as it did her. His body spinning up as she tried to ignore him, to forget him, the aching in her heart still catching up, both her own pain and his.

Throwing his lighter back.

Carolina curled up into a ball, holding her knees close to her, as if it could make up for the sudden loss inside her. She clenched her teeth, allowing herself to silently cry for the first time in years.

He had given her a gift. And she would not waste it.


End file.
